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Today I’m hosting debut novelist, Miranda Wheeler and
Something of a Kind. Not only do I have a review, but also a great guest post
that gives more insight into her novel! AND what blog tour stop would be complete without a giveaway, right? So, of course, somewhere in this post, you'll find the details to a great GIVEAWAY!

Firstly, let’s check out the cover and blurb.

As a 17-year-old artist, Alyson Glass had her future mapped – she’d go
to art school, study in Paris, and eventually make enough bank to support her
single mother. The trouble is, things don’t always go as planned – especially a
sneak attack of stage-four ovarian cancer.

Suddenly motherless and court-ordered to move in with her estranged father, Aly’s
forced to leave behind her New York hometown for the oddities of Alaska.
Ashland seems like cruel and unusual punishment – at least until her dad
ditches her at a local restaurant and she crashes into a super-hot,
guitar-playing diner-boy with a horrific home life.

Noah Locklear is used to waiting – waiting for his shift to end, waiting until
his drunkard parents go to bed, and waiting for the day he can get his sister
away from their dysfunctional family. The summer before senior year, the
elusive researchers that ruthlessly pry into Ashland’s history shatter a final
cord with Noah’s abusive father, one of the town’s elders. Unfortunately, as
far as his parents are concerned, the new girl who’s changing everything
belongs to the outsiders. With their relationship increasingly forbidden, the
struggle of knowing who to trust reveals that nothing is what it seems.

As Aly encourages Noah to investigate the legends he’d always written off as
stories, they uncover the one thing their fathers can agree on: there’s
something in the woods.—Supplied by Author

I received this book in exchange for an honest review as
part of the Something of a Kind Blog Tour. And I must say that I was pleasantly
surprised.

I’m very familiar with teen romance and coming of age
stories. I worried that this novel would be so much like others but is a breath
of fresh air with a storyline that grabs attention. However, I was not taken
with the cover as much as I would have liked.

Right off we see Alyson, having to deal with the tremendous
loss that comes with the death of a parent. I think Ms. Wheeler writes the
emotion in such a way that one needs to grab a Kleenex, and hold onto it for
the duration of the novel. Not only does she throw her character across the
country to live with a stranger of a father, but we see even more. My heart tugged for Noah and his sister. His character was
written with so much depth (and swoon) that he isn’t your typical novel
heartthrob.

Both characters are
conflicted, dealing with real life problems, that are very relatable to teens
and adults alike. The novel has several plot points woven together to give a
very heartfelt, entertaining read. Each
character grew over the course of the novel, which is importan. They’ve
learned to use their sadness and pain as way to channel strength and endurance
when needed. By the end, I was a fan of both characters, the novel and the
author.

I don’t like spoilers, so, I’ll leave the twist that will
grab your attention even more, out of this review. That’s for the reader to
discover and not for me to tell you.

Something of a Kind can easily appeal to any YA lover. There
is truly a bit of everything in this novel! However, I will say that, at times,
the Author’s age and inexperience came through. A few areas could still use a little work.

I do hope to see more from this author and truly
believe that with a little more skill honing, she’ll be a force in the YA novel
world!

What
I Want Readers to Take Away From Something
of a Kind

A
Guest Post by Miranda Wheeler

Though my concepts are as elusive as
the creatures that crawl around in the mythology behind Something of a Kind’s premise, some pretty vicious labors of love
went into crafting what lay beyond words said. Between head-cocking themes and
explicitly woven controversies, there’s quite a few things I intended readers
to receive from the novel.

The story is so much more than the
bursts of happiness, the capture of a rarely seen culture, intense passions, or
the little whimsicalities that came into fruition from the legends within. The
entities, characters, people – whatever they may be to the reader and I – deal
with constant hurdles and abrasions. I asked my protagonists to bear the weight
of realistic, gritty issues. The heroine swallows terminally ill and
chronically absent parents and her love interest was force-fed poverty and
domestic abuse at the hands of alcoholics, and between the two, trials
including abandonment, grief, loss, divorce, neglect, manipulations lapsed in
the void between, healing as they closed in on one another. Most of these
things I’ve been a personal witness or curious student from a distance rather
than a victim, but the darkest things I’ve faced in my own life definitely went
into their creation. In a way, I absolutely hope that a sense of awareness for
those lucky enough to avoid these experiences, and for those buried in these
situations, if a sense of comfort was brought in overcoming through small
victories, I’d be moved. I fought to avoid glorifying pain, or falling to the
other end of the scale with overdramatizing. Much of my attention went into
that effort, instead focusing on the power of conquering roadblocks and
allowing those that dealt with them to grow on a separate, individual arc.

Beyond the darkness, the piece is
filled to the brim with culture and a rarely touched, if not underrated,
mythology. Though much of what is added is entirely fiction (The Sun Thieves is a prime example),
almost everything that was included was based upon and inspired by actual
legends, legitimate lifestyles, and existent areas (Ketchikan and Prince of
Wales Island were extremely influential muses). Comprehending a varied
worldview and well-rounded global values are important elements of growing as
an individual, and if some of that alternative insight could contribute to the
cultivation of that development, I’d be elated, possibly over the moon.

Mostly, however, I’d love it if
readers could take away an open mind, or a sense of the introduction of its
culmination. My inner dreamer dragged some tremendously eccentric notions into Something of a Kind, with its associated
controversies kicking and snarling by the horns in spite of whimsy’s delicate,
starry-eyed nature. I had every intention of grabbing something common in
reference but unconventional and bizarre in nature and dropping it into a
setting where its existence was plausible and fathomable and entirely less
figurative. It was the most difficult aspect of the book, and I’ve gotten some
illuminating feedback on what’s said to be effective, curious, and unique. If
that becomes the universal response, I can only hope it leaves the reader with
a little something to holds afterwards.